Born on the Fourth of July: Independence Day will mark the official launch of the Maine Observer, a Web site that claims it will be “a comprehensive online news source for the state of Maine.”

Depends on your definition of “comprehensive,” I guess.

Done at the Dome: The MaineToday Media newspapers have an opening for a State House reporter. Ethan Wilensky-Lanford has parted ways with the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal, and Morning Sentinel after barely six months in Augusta. According to an informed source, “He did not resign.”

Recently, the conservative As Maine Goes Web site raised an interesting issue concerning media bias. Several posters claimed Maine news organizations routinely label certain commentators and politicians as conservative, while rarely applying the liberal tag to those on the other end of the ideological spectrum.

Missing the fire: On June 9, the morning after Maine’s primary election, the Lewiston Sun Journal ran an editorial – obviously written before the polls closed – that carried the headline, “Candidates failed to fire up primary voters.”

Two into one: Two Web sites that have been providing first-rate political coverage during this primary season are merging. According to an announcement posted on the Pine Tree Politics home page on June 3, that site and Augusta Insider will become one shortly after the June 8 primary, with the AI site ceasing to exist.

Editorial excellence: Whoever has been writing the editorials for the Lewiston Sun Journal recently (probably executive editor Rex Rhoades or managing editor Judith Meyer) is doing first-rate work. The opinion pieces have been fact-checking political ads and op-eds, doing the work that, in the past, had been taken care of on the news pages.

With real journalism in short supply this election year, it’s comforting to know that somebody is keeping an eye on what the candidates say and doing some serious digging to see if it’s true.

Looking for real Maine news? Try New Hampshire. The May 25 Portsmouth Herald carried a story by reporter Deborah Mcdermott about an investigation by the Maine Office of Program Evaluation and Governmental Accountability into the Maine Turnpike Authority.

Cutting Cutler in: On May 26, the MaineToday Media newspapers – the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel – wrapped up their series of profiles of the gubernatorial candidates with a glowing assessment of independent Eliot Cutler.

Packing it up – and in: In case you somehow missed it, the Portland Press Herald, over the weekend, moved its newsroom a couple of blocks. This event, officially announced months ago, was somehow deemed important enough to merit both a front-page story and a Bill Nemitz front-page column in the May 24 paper.

At last, some guts: As I’ve noted before, the profiles of gubernatorial candidates that have been running lately in the Maine media, in particular those in the Portland Press Herald and Bangor Daily News, are notable for their lack of depth.